Sriracha

Let me tell you why a good Sriracha never sits still in the bottle — give it a shake, and you will see it shift, thick and slow, like lava deciding where to flow. Squeeze out a little onto a spoon and look: it should hold its shape, not spread out flat and watery.

Choose it by look and smell. You want a vivid, glossy red-orange — a bottle that has sat too long on a shelf turns duller, and that tells you it is tired, nothing more. Open the cap and smell it before anything else — chili and garlic should hit you together, sharp and clean, with vinegar right behind, not ahead. If the smell is flat or sour in the wrong way, put the bottle back.

Now, some people say Sriracha is just hot sauce, so more equals more flavour. No! It is garlic, chili and vinegar in balance, not a weapon. Dump in far more than the dish needs and taste it — your tongue will tell you the dish has gone one-note, all heat and sting, nothing to chew on. That is the mistake — treating a seasoning like a dare. One ribbon, stirred in, tasted, then maybe more. That is the whole method.